STAMFORD -- Bus ridership in Stamford rose for the third year in a row, while use of bike racks on buses hit a record high after posting a large gain after several years of up and down numbers.

Last year, bicyclists made 7,726 boardings on the 54 buses operating in CTTransit's Stamford district, after three prior years in which numbers had remained nearly level, falling from 7,060 in 2010 to 6,964 in 2011. The previous record was set in 2008 with 7,630 bicycle boardings.

In 2012, bus ridership grew nearly 3 and a half percent from about 3.3 million to more than 3.4 million on the district's buses, according to CTTransit.

Bicycle rack usage also rose in the New Haven division, from 21,200 users in 2011 to 25,500 in 2012. In Hartford, bike boardings rose from 23,900 to 30,900 over the two years.

David Lee, CTTransit's administrator, said the agency doesn't research bike rack use trends, but that anecdotally, it is considered to be a smaller group of committed cyclists who use the bus racks more frequently.

"Though we don't keep hard data on that we talk to our bus drivers about who they see using the racks and typically they see the same people," Lee said.

The bus ridership growth represents a nearly 15 percent increase since 2008, when ridership was about 3 million, according to the CTTransit statistics.

Lee said this year's bus ridership growth is believed to be a continuation of a gradual recovery after the economic downturn and higher gas prices remaining above $4 in Fairfield County for most of 2012.

"Some of the transit riders who were early casualties of the downturn are now coming back to work," Lee said. "We also know that there are more people who are looking at how they travel as not just a transit or non-transit decision and they may ride the bus some days and not others."

Bicycle advocates said the increase in rack usage could be linked to higher gasoline prices, a desire to remain healthy, and greater awareness among cyclists about the racks being available.

"I do think that there is more awareness, marketing, and spreading of information about cycling and use of transit as an alternative means of moving about the state than there has been in the past," Pade said. "Also, state policies and major planning principles have been increasingly calling for transit-oriented development for the past couple of years."

Josh LeCar, a co-founder of People Friendly Stamford, a group seeking to promote new pedestrian and bicycle friendly projects in the city, said the bike rack use numbers might reflect the significant gasoline price increase between 2010 and 2012.

LeCar, a former transportation planner for the city, said some of the use might also be attributable to recent immigrants in Norwalk and Stamford, who are more reliant on transit and may use bicycles as part of their daily commute.

"In some families there might be three or four working adults and one car available, which raises the question how the other people get to work," LeCar said.

Amanda Kennedy, a planner for the Regional Plan Association in Stamford, said to make the city friendlier to bicyclists, major traffic arteries such as Long Ridge and High Ridge roads and Route 1 need to be reconfigured to add more width to shoulders.

The city's ongoing Long Ridge and High Ridge Road Corridor Study might help produce a plan to make those roads more hospitable to walkers and bicyclists, she said.

"The big arterial roads are very dangerous to bicycle on and it makes it really hard to get around," she said. "I really don't think it is so reliant upon getting funds because many of these bicycle and pedestrian improvement projects are very low cost and involve basically restriping roads when they pave."